John Adams

Free speech: Adams signed the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 during an undeclared naval war with France. The Sedition Act made it a crime to publish 'false, scandalous and malicious' writing against the government, and was used to prosecute Republican newspaper editors and a congressman, Matthew Lyon, who was jailed. Federalists argued the country faced foreign subversion. The backlash helped Jefferson win in 1800, and the act became the textbook example of wartime overreach against dissent.